News

As you can see we have become grandparents yet again - well sort of! These little chaps or maybe chapesses arrived 3 days ago and were a bit of a surprise. Their daddy is only a few months old himself and I wasn't sure he knew what to do but he obviously does! It's a bit cold for them at the moment but mummy is being very conscientious and they spend most of the time under her wing.

Meanwhile boxes are being designed and made - yes, honestly! There has been a bit of distraction recently as Peter enlisted the help of Frank to make a jig to improve the finishing process of the ring boxes. Many happy hours have been spent by the two of them trying to perfect this jig which is beginning to drive them both crazier than they already are. It seems that what should work just won't work  and the maths and physics behind it is beyond their brain's capabilities. But they are both like dogs with a well chewed bone and won't give up. Meanwhile some naughty person in the USA has copied Peters' ring box design completely and is selling them on Etsy which is a sort of craftsperson's selling website. Peter says it would upset his Karma too much to pursue the issue of "intellectual property rights" (not that you could describe Peter as an intellectual!) - So let's just hope the other person's Karma is well and truly disturbed!

Peter has just completed a series of gorgeous jewellery boxes and I have fallen in love with one of them which is in She oak. It has an unbelievably rich, chestnutty colour and you can almost feel the Australian sun shining out of it. Apparently it isn't oak at all and its correct title is Casuarinaceae which is a bit of a mouthful but it was compared to oak because of its timber quality. It isn't a wood that Peter would normally use but he had some left over from the time when an Australian living in London wanted a box for his wife that would remind her of home. At the time he scoured the country trying to find it as it is very hard to come by. These boxes aren't on the website at the moment - that's a job for me over the next couple of days so if you would like to see this box it will be there soon, I promise!

Chris

Well, the world of box making carries on apace and after the rush and tumble of Christmas and new year celebrations, life is settling back down  to a rhythm of saw blades, head scratching, dust, jewellery boxes, desk boxes and more boxes than you can begin to imagine! Peter is working on commissions at the moment which were delayed because of the  Christmas rush and having to keep the elves in order. Of course before he can get down to it he has to clean and tidy the workshop,re-arrange wood, bring stored wood in from the outside, clean the windows, talk to the neighbours. All this is very cathartic I'm sure and like a spring clean of body and mind and hopefully some beautiful boxes will appear in the near future!

Meanwhile we are bathed in sparkling winter sunshine which we are enjoying with lots of walks and Peter even went paragliding at the weekend and managed to stay up over Blencathra for an hour before the sub zero temperatures forced him down!

The hens are laying remarkably well and Edward is now well and truly ruling the roost and has learned to cock a doodle doo with a vengeance. He bullies the girls really badly and forgets that they are a lot older and wiser than he is. They all seem very happy though and I'm sure would be pleased to know that their fellow hens - in this country at least will no longer be caged and that the last battery hen was released some weeks ago and is to be kept as a pet and named Liberty! How wonderful!

If only life were just mist and falling leaves but the perils of the modern age cause our stress levels to rise exponentially - well at least Peter's. He blames me of course for pressing the wrong button on the computer but I thought they were indestructible. It seems not and ours had a complete nervous breakdown. Our son who is a bit like the caped crusader when it comes to computer problems came to the rescue and spent three whole days putting things right - what a hero he is.

Apart from that the world of boxes goes on and we are speeding along to Christmas - that wonderful season of giving and families falling out with one another - such joy! The elves have started on their 12 hour shifts and grumble constantly but they are turning out some very nice boxes which will make wonderful Christmas presents.

The hens are doing well although we have had tragedy. My eBay chicks have been taken by some predator - probably a weasel that we have seen hanging around in that weasly way that weasels have. Well, he's had some good chicken dinners as they were getting quite fat. We are all sad as they were very sweet but I guess that is the natural order. Chris

I saw these fairy doors while walking near here two days ago and am now totally convinced that fairies do exist.

I think I am getting very tedious with my excuses that time flies by too quickly and look, oh heck another two months have passed without me writing anything in the diary. Peter is beginning to despair of me as his secretary but then he doesn't complain when he gets a cup of tea brought to him in the afternoon.

So yes, time is passing  and the leaves are falling rather rapidly from the trees especially as it has been very windy. We enjoyed our mini heat wave last week along with the rest of the country and loved the feel of real sunshine and walking around without three layers of clothing.

The box world continues on in its exciting and unpredictable way. Peter is now working on a large commission that involves secret opening mechanisms and lots of head scratching. He has started to write a blog which you can find on Google blogs (jewellery-boxes-peterlloyd )if you are interested in the more technical side of things and seeing a box emerge from a lump of wood.

We have a good stock of boxes in anticipation of the Christmas rush which will probably start soon and lots of ring boxes for those seasonal proposals! Talking of which one of our sons has just announced his engagement and they are to marry next year so great excitement with that - we will become in laws or maybe outlaws...

The hens are fine and behaving themselves. One of them is sitting on 6 fertile eggs that I bought from Ebay - is there nothing you can't buy on Ebay?  Chris

Well, as usual time has marched on in a frighteningly fast fashion and the little chick that was about to be born in my last missive is now a teenager and almost as big as his mum! I still don't know if he, is a she and I call him Edward most days and Edwina when he's better behaved! I've increased my hen colony by three with hens that were destined to become chicken soup and are now each giving me an egg a day - they're rather lovely but my resident hens didn't think so and we've had a few scraps but things are settling down a little.

The world of boxes has been rather neglected with Peter finishing off work in the house and I now have some very impressive bedside tables, shelves and a sideboard that I don't think can ever be moved! Peter is now back in the workshop and I have to say really has his head down and is working very hard and the dust is flying and he is talking to himself all the time which is a good sign. He is making a writing slope and a beautiful jewellery box in mulberry which is gorgeous. Some of the woods that come out of Peter's workshop are very beautiful - Mother Nature seems so extravagant in her designs. We were on a cycling holiday recently and passed a wood yard and of course Peter had to disappear inside for about 2 hours He came out enthusing about pippy oak and rippled sycamore and I think if he'd had his way he would have put it onto the back of our bicycles there and then. He does spend a lot of time seeking out these lovely woods and when he finds them jumps up and down with excitement. With that thought in your head I'll say goodbye and leave you with a picture of Deirdre the scarecrow that we entered into this year's village scarecrow competition and was titled "Windy Hallbankgate".Chris